


burning low

by majesdanes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5568541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdanes/pseuds/majesdanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place directly after the events of 4x12 ("Darkness on the Edge of Town"); Emma wonders why Regina was willing to sacrifice herself for her, and Regina doesn't know how to cope with the answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burning low

Her desk is buried beneath endless piles of paperwork–charters to be signed, transactions awaiting approval, legislation left unattended for so long it’s a wonder the documents haven’t started to gather dust. None of it’s enough to hold her attention, though; she’s all too aware of how _pointless_ it is, this place with its townspeople like actors performing their parts in a play of her own invention. It’s pretense, of course: how much money should be allotted for the new playground, budgeting for public education, the paving of the roads; why the hell should it _matter_ when thirty years ago there’d been nothing here but forest? 

There’s a certain irony in that, she allows. Storybrooke is _her_ fault, after all, her burden to bear. And, for a short time, it had seemed like a blessing, this town packed to overflowing with willing subjects. They’re not half so willing _now_ as they had been then, of course; Emma had seen to that as soon as she’d crossed the town line (but that’s a train of thought she has no desire to pursue right now). The point is this: this town is still _her_ domain, her kingdom. And so, when– _how_ had it all gotten so tedious?

She’s reading through the same sentence with glazed-over eyes for what must be the _thousandth_ time when she pauses–exhales, angry with herself now, and reaches for the decanter. It doesn’t make sense, that she should still feel this way: _trapped,_ within the confines of the very cage she’d built for herself, even when the mayor’s office had been returned to her, and with it the trust (undeserved) of those she’d betrayed so many times in the past. And perhaps it’s true, what they say–that she’s reckless, _destructive_ , inherently, irreversibly so; she’d been given peace, and calm, and still, it seemed, wanted nothing more than to burn it all to ash. 

The wine dulls the frustration somewhat, wears at the sharp angles of it until it’s gone soft and malleable. She thinks, absently (nearly laughs at the thought, harsh and mirthless) that nothing’s changed in the slightest. Nothing except, perhaps, for one thing and _that’s–_

There’s a knock at the door, then, and Regina knows without having to ask that it’s her. Who else would bother to visit her now?

She gives the wine at the bottom of her glass a lazy swirl, immaculately manicured fingers curled around the stem of it like a lifeline, and takes another sip. “Rather late for a professional visit, Ms. Swan, don’t you think?” she asks, and waits for the telltale _click_ of the doorknob turning. It doesn’t come, and there’s an almost guilty weight to the silence on the other side of the door that makes her add, grudgingly, “But I’m wide awake, so–I don’t see why not.” 

Emma lets herself in, and the door falls gently shut behind her. She’s still dressed in the same outfit she’d been wearing earlier, and Regina lets herself wonder–briefly–whether she’d even _tried_ to sleep; her eyes linger on the gash that runs a thin red line beneath Emma’s left ear, a token of today’s battle with the Chernabog. It’s clear it hasn’t been tended to, not even a band-aid hastily applied; she can just picture Snow’s endless fussing and prodding, Emma’s utter refusal to be on the receiving end of it, and it’s so unbearably _Emma_ that she almost smiles; a tension she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying leaves her shoulders, loosens the rigid set of them. Emma _does_ smile then, hopeful and tentative, and Regina could kick herself for the indefinable– _something_ that burgeons in her chest at the sight of it. 

Annoyed, she plucks a sheet of paper from the pile, smooths it out and tries to look as though whatever’s written there is important enough to command her full attention; it _isn’t–_ couldn’t possibly be, when Emma is hovering over her with that smile on her face that Regina _knows_ she’s done nothing to deserve–but her voice comes out cool and unconcerned when she asks, “So, what _is_ it that brings you here, exactly? Assuming it’s not business-related, but given the time I hardly think–”

“Yeah, no–” Emma interrupts; sheepish now, she scratches at the back of her head. “Nothing like that.” 

The words on the page swim and blur until finally she gives up, lifts her eyes to meet Emma’s. “If not that, then what?” she asks, with a quirk of her brow that could almost be mistaken for something warm, even teasing.

Emma’s all darting eyes and fidgeting hands, and Regina can tell that whatever it is that she’s bursting to say, it’s important in some way; she’s cautious and _careful_ in all the ways she usually isn’t, and it puts Regina on edge. “Well,” she presses impatiently, not accustomed to being kept waiting, “ _What_?” 

There’s a remoteness to Emma now, a distant cast to her eyes, and maybe that’s why she doesn’t rise to the bait, lash out at Regina as Regina had lashed out at her. Instead, she glances up, hands stiffening into fists at her sides with something that might be resolve. “In the car this morning,” she says, “You thought we were going to die, remember?” 

“And you _didn’t_?”

There’s a wry note to Regina’s voice, but Emma doesn’t smile–just shakes her head. “ _Regina_ ,” she says, like she’s frustrated, like she’s angry-but-not-quite, and then the name catches on a sigh. “You know that’s not what I mean.” 

“Enlighten me, then.” 

“You left. You used yourself to try to distract it from _me_! You–” She manages a graceless gesture, an awkward fluttering of her hands that Regina takes to be a reference to her disappearance: the “poof,” as Emma had always so eloquently called it. It’s the look on Emma’s face that brings everything into too-sharp clarity; the moment that her brow furrows, something in Regina’s chest simply _plummets_. 

“Emma, as flattering as your version of this story is, you and I both know I’m no hero. Don’t for a moment delude yourself into thinking–” 

“I know that,” Emma says, and it’s easy, and it’s honest, as only Emma can be. “Jesus, I’m not saying you never–” She huffs out a sigh, and the silence stretches taut between them, like something ready to snap. Emma is the one to break it, with a sentiment as firm as it is gentle: “You could have died.” 

Regina opens her desk drawer, swipes a bunch of papers from the desktop and drops them in it; it’s only for something to do, some way to occupy herself with anything– _anyone_ –but Emma. _I didn’t_ , she almost snaps, _I didn’t_ die _, so what does it matter now?,_ but it’s so meaningless, so evasive, that she finds herself saying instead, “You’d have done the same for me.

She thinks, afterwards, that that was somehow worse–that there’d been a grudging sort of wonder in her voice, when she’d said it, and after that, surely, Emma had _known_.

On unsteady feet, Regina stands, sidestepping the desk so that she and Emma are practically touching, and she’s thinking desperately of how best to handle this mess she’s made, how to quell the openness and the _warmth_ in Emma’s face. But everything’s a wine-haze, soft and sweet and slow, and she’s torn away Emma’s joy so, so many times already, that how could she possibly–

Emma’s closes the distance between them, and Regina’s eyes widen with surprise in the fleeting instant before their lips finally meet. She stumbles back until she’s flush with the wall, glances up with her shoulders pressed uncomfortably hard up against it; in that instant, Emma seems uncertain–seems so _young,_ stripped utterly bare–and Regina _wants_ , and loathes that she wants, and tangles her fingers in the gold of Emma’s hair to pull her closer. 

It’s as much a show of approval as any one act can be, and so Emma’s mouth falls to her neck, to her collarbone, fingers clumsily prying open the buttons of her silk blouse to bare the vast expanse of skin beneath it. Emma buries lips and teeth in the flesh there, leaves purpling patches in her wake until Regina’s skin is mottled with it; she won’t shudder–won’t give Emma Swan that satisfaction, even now–but it’s difficult not to when Emma is _everywhere_ at once so that Regina can’t breathe, can’t do anything but be swallowed up by whatever disaster _this_ is.

“ _Enough_ ,” she hisses when Emma’s lips on her jaw makes her chest constrict, “Not where people can _see.”_ Her fists clench in Emma’s hair, and she surges forward, presses her lips to Emma’s in a last show of defiance that sends Emma reeling until she retaliates, hitches Regina’s legs around her waist and kisses her long and lingering against the wall at her back. It’s different, though, this time–softer, somehow, brighter, and Emma’s _smiling_ against her, and it’s kind and it’s gentle and it’s–unbearably genuine. Emma breaks the contact, then, drops her head to the slope of Regina’s shoulder and exhales, the breath warm against her; the gesture is entirely too sweet, entirely too _intimate_. 

Regina isn’t thinking about anything but _escaping_ when she maneuvers out of Emma’s hold on her. Ignoring the shock in Emma’s eyes, she ducks beneath her still-outstretched arms, trying to simultaneously button her shirt with one hand and rub at her smeared lipstick with the sleeve of the other as she retreats toward the safety of her desk. 

“Regina–” Emma starts, voice low, but Regina just tosses a smile over her shoulder, mocking and artificial. 

“If that was all you wanted, dear, you could have just asked,” she says, and watches with a forced indifference as the emotions flicker with technicolor clarity across Emma’s face: surprise, confusion, frustration, and then, resolutely–anger. 

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" Emma snaps, nearly tripping in her haste to snatch her jacket off the floor and tug it back on. 

"So you've told me, Ms. Swan. But I'm afraid it isn't my responsibility to coddle you. If, in your mind, you've made this–" she pauses, purses her lips, then continues delicately, " _encounter_ out to be anything more than it was, that's none of my concern." 

"Yeah," says Emma, "Whatever helps you sleep at night, right?," and there's something more than anger in her tone, now–something too much like revulsion, or pity, or some mingling of the two. Regina's heart catches in her throat with such a vengeance that she can't find it in herself to speak; by the time she'd thought of something verging on an adequate response, Emma had gone, and she was alone once more.  


Swallowing, she pauses before the mirror, smooths the dark cloud of her hair into something presentable. Then, with steady strides, she returns to her desk, to the piles and piles of paperwork left untouched, and continues her work. 


End file.
